While the Arizona plant is still under construction, Apple is trying hard to source materials from non-China-based entities as much as possible, so it can be more flexible and less dependent on rival nations of the US.
Sourcing Chips For Apple Products
The semiconductor sector is one of the many industries that grew rapidly in demand during the pandemic. This led several governments to pump money into developing their own plants while also encouraging the existing entities to increase their capacity. TSMC is one among them, which received substantial support from the US in the last couple of years. Since the company exists in Taiwan – virtually controlled by China-US wants to move that out and let TSMC be more flexible for them. Thus, Washington has supported the company’s plans to set up a new fabrication plant in Arizona, which started in June 2021. While it’s set to be complete sometime in 2023 and set to take production orders in early 2024 – Apple CEO Tim Cook has just confirmed that they’ll source some of their needed chips from this Arizona plant when available. He confirmed this in an internal meeting with the Apple employees in Germany, where all the designations from engineering to retail employees are present. Further, the chip orders may expand to plants in Europe as well. While it’s good that Apple is hoping to depend on locally made products, TSMC – the manufacturer, will have to struggle to serve Apple’s demands. Intel is already having a plant in Arizona, which employs over 12,000 people and seeks 3,000 more for its production needs. And with TSMC entering now will have to compete for labor in that low-unemployment area.
